Thursday, October 22, 2009

Highlights Illustrators' Party

Highlights throws an Illustrators' Party Weekend every year. They invited us out to their beautiful headquarters in eastern Pennsylvania and wined and dined us (well, I didn't have any wine because of the baby). There were activities all weekend long including a costume party, bbq, square dance, lamb roast, hayride, pumpkin painting, portfolio time, and so on. I loved meeting so many illustrators and especially my fabulous art director from Highlights Magazine, Cindy Smith. Incredible weekend!The theme of the costume party was to dress up as our favorite day of the year. I chose World Tourism Day and piled on stuff from all over the world. Casey chose National Kick Butt Day and wore his tae kwon do uniform with a butt-shaped sign pinned to his butt that said, "Kick here!" Only one guy attempted to kick him. I took a few people out with my huge sombrero though.Near Highlights and Boyds Mills offices. We took the lovely back roads thanks to our handy iPhones.This is the lake next to our cabin. Gorgeous! We took a paddle boat out for a bit and got our butts wet due to a broken rudder.Casey and I made the Highlights weekend into a 30-hour weeklong roadtrip and visited friends along the way. It was a beautiful time for driving and being 6 months pregnant was fine for a roadtrip. Baby Valiant did great!

Highlights does some of the coolest stuff! One of my writing buddies won their writer of the month award. I didn' know they did this in house vote. The illustrators trip sounds delightful! I'm glad you had a wonderful time.

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About Me

Kristi Valiant is the author/illustrator of PENGUIN CHA-CHA (Random House). Some of the recent books Kristi has illustrated are PRETTY MINNIE IN PARIS and PRETTY MINNIE IN HOLLYWOOD by the #1 New York Times bestselling author, Danielle Steel (Doubleday), THE GOODBYE CANCER GARDEN by Janna Matthies (Albert Whitman), CORA COOKS PANCIT by Dorina K Lazo Gilmore (Shen's Books), and Cecilia Galante's early chapter book series "Little Wings" (Random House).
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